


home is where your heart is

by morethanjustagame



Category: Football RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Teenagers, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-23
Updated: 2015-03-23
Packaged: 2018-03-19 07:25:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3601377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morethanjustagame/pseuds/morethanjustagame
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“My parents kicked me out and I didn’t know where to go”<br/>He looks a bit uncomfortable, and you wish you could save him from this, you wish he would have walked some other way this night so he didn’t have to sit next to a guy he doesn’t know that well and come up with something to answer to that.<br/>“I’m sorry I told you that, I get that it’s not … “<br/>“You can come home with me”</p>
            </blockquote>





	home is where your heart is

**Author's Note:**

> This is really cheesy ... I regret nothing
> 
> Also English is not my first language so sorry for any mistakes!

When your parents throw you out of the house you grew up in, all you have with you is your phone, your wallet and the clothes you’re currently wearing. The thing is, you didn’t expect this. You had expected a lot of screaming, or maybe silence, or some really angry looks, but never this. Your parents were never parents you thought were able to throw out their only son without even letting him fix a place to stay. But here you are, on the street with a too thin sweater and a phone that’s about to die. Life never quite works out the way you think it will.

You don’t know where to go, so you end up on a bench a few minutes from your house. Someone you know will probably walk by, but you don’t really have a lot of options. It’s late, and it’s a pretty deserted place even by day, so you guess it could be worse. A guy walks by who tries too hard to pretend you don’t exist, and two girls who stop giggling when they see you and look like they pity you but not enough to ever think of you again. Then a old woman kind of sways towards to you, clearly drunk, and stops when she notice you there and smiles a kind of smile that sends shivers all the way to your toes, and really not in a good way.  
“Aren’t you a pretty thing” she says in a accent you can’t really place. “I can make you feel less alone, if you like”  
“I’m not alone” you didn’t mean to say anything, because you knew how painfully obvious it would be that it was a lie, but you always had trouble keeping your mouth shut. She keeps talking for awhile, but eventually she walks away when she understands you’re going to keep ignore her.

You must have fallen asleep after that, because the next thing you know you’re shaken awake by someone who keeps saying your name.  
“Antoine? Hey, are you okay?”  
You recognize his voice, and his face seems familiar, but you can’t remember his name or where you know him from. You’re not sure if you said any of that loud, or if the guy can read minds, but he says “I’m Karim, we’re in the same math class”  
“You’re the guy who always hides his laugh behind his hand”  
He’s quiet, and looks down, and you say “sorry, I don’t know how to be quiet”  
“No, it’s … yeah, that’s me”  
“You don’t need to do that”  
You really didn’t mean to say that out loud at all. He ignores your comment, and says “What are you doing here in the middle of the night?”  
“What are you doing here in the middle of the night?”  
“I’m walking my dog” he looks to his left and when you follow his gaze you see a dog sitting there nicely, and you think that you wish you could answer something as simple as that, too. “Your turn”  
You try to think of something to say that won’t sound so tragic, but lying was never your strong side.  
“My parents kicked me out and I didn’t know where to go”  
He looks a bit uncomfortable, and you wish you could save him from this, you wish he would have walked some other way this night so he didn’t have to sit next to a guy he doesn’t know that well and come up with something to answer to that.  
“I’m sorry I told you that, I get that it’s not … “  
“You can come home with me”  
“I can’t … “  
“Listen, Antoine” he says before you can have a chance to continue, which is kind of good, because for once you had no idea what to say. “I can’t walk away knowing you will sleep here all night. I can’t go home to a nice bed when I know you’re out here in the dark all alone. It must be freezing. And yeah, I get that we’re not best friends or anything, and maybe you hate me, I don’t know, but I’m … I’m not going to leave you here, okay? I’m sorry but I can’t do that”  
“You’re one of the few people who would apologize from offering someone a place to stay. And call me Anto, please”  
He looks down again, and his dog bark, and you say “I don’t hate you. And I … “  
You’re quiet, because you want to say yes, you want to get off this bench and not have to meet drunk women who think they’re attractive, but it feels wrong going home with him, it feel like it will be awkward in the morning, when Karim realises he brought home a guy he doesn’t know and who can’t shut up.  
“Come on, let’s go home” he says, and he helps you up from the bench and you think that you must have done something really good in your previous life to deserve this happening to you.

“Karim!” you hear a woman saying from another room, and even though there’s harshness in her voice it manages to sound soft. You feel like you don’t belong here at all.  
“Do you have to walk the dog this late?”  
“She needed to go out” he bends down and kisses the top of the dog’s head before he removes the leash and she runs of to her food, her paws making the sound your parents always hated.  
You stand there, feeling awkward and out of place, until he looks at you with a look that make you feel like you are exactly where you’re suppose to be. It’s weird, because a lot of people have looked you in a lot of ways, but you have never felt like this before.  
“Come on” he whispers, and you follow him down the hall to where you suppose his room is. “Are you hungry?”  
“You’re not going to tell your parents I’m here?”  
“Tomorrow” he says, and something about him makes you feel safe. “Hungry?”  
“I'd rather sleep”  
You realise suddenly, that tomorrow will come and you can’t just go home because your own parents had looked at you and said “you’re not welcome here anymore” like they hadn’t been the ones who raised you, like they hadn’t loved you, like they didn’t feel anything at all for you, and it’s feels like you’re having a panic attack.  
“Antoine, what’s happening? Relax, I got you”  
“I’m so sorry, I’m so … shit, I probably woke everyone up, I’m so sorry”  
“Don’t worry about that, okay? It doesn’t … Come on” he says and still holds his arm around your waist, as if he think you might fall otherwise. “If you don’t want to sleep next to me, I can … “  
“No” you say, too fast, too loud. “I don’t want to be alone”

You wake up next morning with Karim’s arm thrown over your stomach. You hear people moving outside of the room, shouting at each other with hushed voices, and you get flashbacks to when you woke up to the same sound yesterday morning, when you thought you would wake up the same way the next day, the next week, the next year. You do wake up to that sound, but it’s different voices in a different house and you have a guy who always hides his laugh behind his mouth’s hand over your stomach. You turn your head to your left and look at him. He looks peaceful when he sleeps, not like you who always turn around and have nightmares, and you wonder what he dreams about, or if he dreams at all. You don’t know why, but you can’t stop looking at him, and you do realise it’s getting a bit creepy, but there’s something about the way his eyelids are completely still, like he couldn’t be calmer than he is right now. He opens his eyes then, and you turn your gaze away too fast.  
“Hi” he says, and when he notices where his arm is his cheeks turn bright red, but he takes it away slowly, carefully, as if he still think you might break. You want to tell him you won’t, but it feels like you can’t be sure about anything anymore, like someone has told you everything you’ve ever known is wrong.  
“Hey” you sound much happier than you expected. He starts to smile, wide and bright, and when he’s about to cover it with his hand you take your wrist to stop him without thinking, without even knowing why.  
“Sorry”  
“I, ehm, I guess we should tell my family you’re here”  
“Could you please not … that I, you know, got kicked out? Tell them I just want to stay here anyway, please”  
“They’re going to think I actually have a friend and be thrilled”  
“You do have a friend”  
He’s silent, and it’s awkward, and you think that maybe he don’t really see you as a friend, maybe he sees you as someone he saved, someone who will move out of his house soon and who he won’t talk to again. Maybe he would’ve done this to anyone, no matter if it were you or someone else. Maybe he doesn’t care about you, maybe he just wants to help people in general. He still doesn’t say anything, but he takes your hand and presses it, just for a moment, and then he gets out of bed to get dressed.

“This is Anto” Karim says when you walk in to the kitchen. you raise your hand to wave hello and feel out of place again. “He’s a friend from school, it’s okay if he stay for awhile, right?”  
“Yeah, sure, just … you never mentioned him before”  
Karim choses to ignore that comment, something you’ll learn that he does every time he doesn’t know what to answer, and says “this is my mom, and this is dad, and this is my brother”  
When they introduce themselves they keep smiling, and you keep looking at Karim because it’s the only time any of this feels right. He nods at you, as if to say, it’s okay, everything’s okay, and you want to reach out and touch him.

That night when you’re about to sleep he says, almost too quiet for you to hear, “Why did you … I mean, why did your parents do that to you?” He sounds so angry, suddenly, and you feel your heart do something weird in your chest.  
“Someday, I will tell you, okay? I promise, but I … I can’t right now”  
“Yeah, yeah, I understand. Just you know … you’re welcome here for as long as you want”  
“I’m not sure your family agrees with you” you try to laugh, but it comes out weird. Your laugh sounds rusty, unused.  
“I don’t care. I’ll hide you under the bed if I need to”  
He doesn’t seem like the kind of person who wouldn’t care what his parents say, but then you realise that you don’t have any idea what kind of person he is.  
“Why? You don’t even know me”  
“I want to” It feels like there’s something more there, something he’s not saying. “You don’t deserve sleeping on a bench where anything can happen”  
“What if I did something really, really bad?”  
“Did you?”  
“No”  
“Well, I trust you not to murder me in my sleep, and you have to trust me, okay?”  
He doesn’t even have to ask, which is weird because you never trust people easily. But there’s something with Karim that tells you he don’t have a bad bone his body.  
“I do. I didn’t even said thank you for all this. You can’t understand how grateful I am, even if I don’t show it. God knows I don’t deserve it”  
“Look, I don’t … Maybe I don’t have any right to say this to you, to act like I know you, but I’m going to say this anyway. I don’t know if you have always thought things like that or if your parents made you or whatever, but don’t act like you’re not worth anything, okay? You’re worth sleeping in a bed, even if this isn’t the bed you want to sleep in, you’re worth listening to, you’re worth … just you know, you deserves this, okay? You do”  
He says you do like it’s the only thing he has ever been sure of, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. You don’t know why you do it, but you press yourself as close to him as you can get, so close that he looks uncomfortable for a moment before he relaxes. “You’re worth a lot of good things too”  
“Thank you” he says, but it’s only a whisper, and you think that maybe he doesn’t want you this close at all. You’re about to make some distance when he turns around so he faces you and put his arm over your waist. You smile, and he smiles back. This time, he doesn’t try to hide it.

You thought it’d be awkward, living there, sitting with his family at dinner like you belonged there. You thought it’d be awkward sitting with Karim in his room, trying to figure out things two teenage boys who doesn’t really know the other but who sleeps pressed closed to each other could do, but it’s easy. You and Karim never seem to be bored, never seem to run out of things to talk about and his family acts like you’re one of them, asks you things about your life like it’s not weird at all that you’re here and doesn’t seem to be leaving any time soon.

The next day is Monday, and you realise that you have had the same clothes for the past three days. You tell this to Karim, and he looks really angry but hands you a pair of jeans and a t-shirt. He keeps looking angry when he’s looking for socks and when he’s comes back from the bedroom and when he packs his bag.  
“Hey, what’s wrong?”  
“I don’t get how they could to that to you. I get that you don’t want me to talk about it, and I respect that, but I can’t … they didn’t even let you pack and you’re their son”  
You sit next to him on the bed and have no idea what to say. You don’t get it either.  
“Maybe I wasn’t made to have parents, I don’t know”  
“Don’t say that. They weren’t made to have a son if they don’t … it’s them, you know, who don’t deserve you“ he seems to calm down a bit then, breathes a little slower. “Sorry, sorry. It’s not my business, I get it”  
“I live in your house, I understand that you want to know”  
Karim’s brother knocks on the door and shout that you both have to drag your lazy asses to school if you don’t want to be late. Karim gives him the finger even though he can’t see and you remember a time when your life was that easy.

When you’re in school, it’s painfully obvious that Karim doesn’t have any friends. People aren’t really mean to him, but they don’t speak to him. You wonder if they tried, and if Karim were shy and awkward when he answered, or if they never bothered. You think about the things they’re missing by not being friend with him. But then you realise that you never bothered, that you didn’t speak to him either, that you would be missing out on his friendship if weren’t for the fact that he let you go home with him one night when you weren’t welcome in your own house.  
You guess it’s true, what they say, that some things fall apart so that better things can fall together. 

“We’re going shopping” Karim says the next day, suddenly standing next to you when you’re putting your things in your locker.  
“We are?”  
“My clothes are too big for you”  
They kind of are, but you like wearing them for some reason, not that you would ever tell him that.  
“I hate shopping” you say instead, which unfortunately is true.  
“It’ll be fun” he says, smirking.  
“Sure” you say, not believing him at all.

The thing is that it actually is fun. No one has ever made shopping fun before. It feels like you laugh more than you have done the past five years, and that’s not something you thought would happen in the near future when you stood outside your front door with nothing but a phone that was almost out of battery and a wallet. You literally have to sit down on a chair once because he makes you laugh so much you can barely breathe.  
“They’re going to throw us out, I swear”  
“Come on, we haven’t actually bought anything”  
“Oh, come on, I bought that … I don’t even remember, shirt I think”  
“You are unbelievable. You have bought one thing in three hours and you can’t even remember what. You can just check in the bag that you hold in your hand” he shakes his head, but he smiles at you, and your stomach does weird things that has nothing to do with the laughing.

When you come home his mother stands in the hallway and looks harsh.  
“Karim, you tell me when you’re not coming home right away, we’ve been through this”  
“Sorry, Anto needed new clothes”  
“How long are you planning to stay?” It doesn’t sound like she wants you to move out, just like she genuinely wonders, but you feel an ache somewhere in your chest anyway.  
“As long as he wants to” Karim says and drags you to his room.  
“Something tell me your mother won’t be happy with that answer”  
“Do you like it here?” He says, almost too fast for you to follow.  
“Yeah, I love it here. Why? If you want me to, you know, leave, just say it and I’ll go”  
“No, no, that’s not what I meant, Jesus. I … I just wanted to make sure you didn’t like, hated it here and is just staying out of politeness or something”  
“If I’d do something out of politeness, it would be leaving. You’re too kind to me, you know”  
“I’m not an angel or whatever. I’m just selfish. I saw you on that bench and I stayed because of course I cared, but then … I wanted you to follow me home because I liked you. Or, I mean … I thought you were someone who was easy to like. I wanted to know you so bad, I wanted to be your friend. I wouldn’t have done it, if it were some random guy or whatever. I don’t even know if I would have stopped if there were someone else from school. It makes me feel so bad, like I have the right to … “  
“Hey, listen, it’s okay. I’m so glad you saved me, you can’t understand. I’m so glad it was you. I’ve always liked your smile. I’ve always wonder why you hide it behind your hand”  
“It’s just … when I was younger, I got bullied for everything, but they kept saying that it was good that I didn’t smile much because I was even uglier when I showed my teeth. Some things just stuck, you know? Some things you just can’t let go”  
“Well, they talked a lot of bullshit. You’re smart enough to know that”  
“How am I suppose to know if they’re right or not? It’s not like someone have ever said my smile is beautiful. I’m not feeling sorry for myself or anything, like it doesn’t really bother me anymore, not since … it doesn’t even matter”  
“Karim?”  
“Yeah?”  
“Your smile is beautiful”

The next day you don’t have any classes with Karim and you don’t know why you miss him this much. When you meet him after school you blurt out “I don’t like being alone, since I met you” without meaning to.  
“I can finally stand being alone, because I know I get to see you soon”  
Karim look like he didn’t really mean to say that, either. He’s too good to be true, and you’re afraid that you’re only dreaming this, you’re afraid you’re still sleeping on that uncomfortable bench with people looking at you weird walking by. Or maybe you're still in the house you grew up in, the one that hasn’t feel like home in a really long time, maybe you’ll wake up soon and go to school and look at Karim when he can’t see and wish this wasn’t just a dream.

You want to kiss him. You realise this one day when you wake up in the couch with your head on his shoulder. He’s shaking, and you wonder what’s happening, then you realise he’s just laughing at something at TV. Sometimes he looks at you like you’re the best thing that ever happened to him, and that’s so weird, because it’s the other way around. You wonder how he’d react if you just pressed your lips against his, right here. You think that he’d probably kick you out and you’d be alone again, homeless and empty and you’d hate yourself for the rest of you life for destroying this, the best relationship you’ve ever had. You don’t remember ever feeling this strong about someone before; every morning when you wake up you’re terrified that this will be the day that he leaves you.  
“Oh, you’re awake”  
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to fall asleep on your shoulder”  
“You don’t need to apologize”  
“I was so alone before I met you” you say suddenly, without any reason at all. “I didn’t even realise how alone I was. This … I know it sounds weird, but this house … I don’t want to move out. I can’t stand the thought of waking up somewhere else”  
“You don’t need to”  
“I know that you don’t think I need to, and I’m so grateful for that you don’t even understand” I love you for that, you don’t say. “And your family has been so nice to me, but … at the end of the day, I don’t belong here. Don’t get me wrong, it feels so right being here, but someday your parents and your brother will get tired of me. You’ll probably get tired of me, too. I take and take and I never give anything back. I’m too clingy and needy and I’ve only been here for three weeks. People always get tired of me. Even my own parents did”  
“Can you stop doing that, acting like you’re not worth this? I wouldn’t let you live here if I didn’t like you. I don’t do this to make myself feel like a good person or anything, I do this because you’re … you’re the kindest and funniest person I have ever met and I want you here. The house would feel so empty without you. And I’m so, so sorry about your parents, you know what I feel about that, about them”  
“You’re the best person I’ve ever met”  
You say it with your face pressed against his shoulder, so you’re not really sure if he hears you. Before him, you used to say whatever you wanted, you didn’t know how to keep your mouth shut, but with him … You’re always nervous around him, always worried you say something wrong. Not because you think he judge you more than anyone else, but because he’s more important. He matters so much to you and you can’t lose him.  
“We could have had this all along. We didn’t need to be alone at all, all this time. We were so close to each other”

There comes a day, of course, when his mother asks how long you are going to stay, not sounding quite so patient anymore.  
“Your parents, they must miss you” she says, and you wish it was true, you wish they sat at home waiting for you to come home, that they’d hug you and smile and make your favourite food (you doubt they even remember what it is anymore).  
Karim opens his mouth to say something, his fists clenched the way they always are when your parents are mentioned, but you start talking before he has a chance to say anything.  
“They don’t miss me. They don’t even know where I am, because they don’t care. I tried to call them in the beginning, begged that they would’ve changed their mind, begged that they would ask me to come home. But they didn’t even answer. And after a while I realised I didn’t want them to. I didn’t want to go back. I don’t think I would be able to, if they told me to. If you want me to leave, I do that, of course, but I … I don’t have any home to go to, and that’s why I’m here. Your son has a heart too big for his chest, and I don’t deserve him. He saved me, and I’m going to be grateful for that no matter what happens, and I’m going to be grateful to you for welcoming me, when you didn’t even know why I was here. If you want me to leave, I leave”  
“Mum, don’t … “ There’s something heartbreaking in Karim’s voice, in the please that’s not said out loud, in the way he can’t even continue the sentence.  
“I’m not going to kick you out. I’m not going to do that. I could never do that”  
“Thank you, thank you, thank you”  
His mother hugs you both and you love her in that moment.  
“Karim has been so much happier since he met you” She sounds so grateful, like you have done something heroic, when it was him who saved you, when it was him who made you actually like your life.  
“I’ve been so much happier since I met him, too”

You’re on top of him in the couch, for totally innocent reasons, really, you’re just trying to take the remote control that he likes to hide behind his back, when he turns serious suddenly, looks down at the floor instead of you.  
“Hey, you haven’t avoided looking me in the eyes for ages. I’ve haven’t exactly missed it. What’s wrong?”  
And then he kisses you. It’s nothing like you expected it to be, really. You except him to be unsure and nervous and have trembling hands and let you take control, but he presses his mouth against yours like he knows exactly what’s he’s doing, like he knows exactly what it does to you. His kisses are just right, not too hard and not too soft, and you shouldn’t be surprised, because everything he does seems to be exactly what you want, what you need.  
“I’ve been in love with you for over a year” he says, voice small and almost embarrassed.  
“You didn’t know me” You had no idea he even cared that you existed before he literally found you on a bench in the middle of the night, and now he’s here, confessing that he hasn’t only liked you but actually been in love with you. You feel so bad, because there he was, someone who you didn’t deserve at all, wanting you, and you didn’t even spoke to him, didn’t even gave him a chance.  
“I know, but I couldn’t help it. And then I saw you on that bench and I couldn’t leave you there, and I felt so selfish, because I knew, I knew that I would pretend I didn’t notice if it were someone else that lied there”  
“We talked about this. You’re not a bad person. You’re really, really not”  
He kisses you again, more tender this time, soft and slow, and you can feel him smiling after awhile. You kiss him back, and you think "I love you", but what you say out loud is “Now, give me the remote control”  
He laughs, and you have to kiss him again. You wonder if you ever will be able to stop.

Sometimes life doesn’t turn out as you expect it to at all, but that isn’t always a bad thing.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm insteadofsound on tumblr, follow if you want! :)


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